DES MOINES, Iowa, Feb. 5 (UPI) — Hillary Clinton’s triumphant victory over Bernie Sanders in Iowa this week may not be in the books just yet.
Democratic party officials have reportedly confirmed that Monday’s vote is now being reviewed after discrepancies were uncovered by an audit.
The Des Moines Register reported that party officials confirmed the audit and recount Friday.
The state’s Democratic chairwoman, Andy McGuire, said earlier this week that an audit would not be performed and that Clinton’s win was assured.
However, it appeared Friday that state party officials may have changed their mind about that.
“Both the Sanders and Clinton campaigns have flagged a very small number of concerns for us, and we are looking at them all on a case-by-case basis,” Iowa Democratic Party spokesman Sam Lau told the Register.
A recount could mean everything to Sanders. The Vermont senator performed well in Iowa, but fell just short of a victory. Clinton’s win margin was just a few delegates and about 0.3 percentage points — making Monday’s the closest result in the state’s caucus history.
The Iowa caucuses, for both Democrats and Republicans, are considered critical votes of primary season — which most analysts believe can literally make or break a candidate’s campaign.
Sen. Ted Cruz won the Republican vote, which was subsequently disputed by both Donald Trump and Ben Carson. It wasn’t known, though, whether news of the Democratic discrepancies might also prompt the Republican party to call for a review.
On the GOP side, however, the vote wasn’t as close. The final tally listed Cruz ahead of Trump by more than 3 percentage points and 6,000 votes.
The Register said it has received numerous reports of discrepancies between final results posted online by Democratic officials and those announced at various precincts Monday night.
In one precinct cited by the Register’s report, Sanders won 19 delegates to Clinton’s 7 — but the party’s official results differed by one delegate in Clinton’s favor.
“19-7 is right,” Pablo Silva, secretary of that precinct, said. “On Monday night, the Iowa Democratic Party felt we had not done it right and they attempted to correct what they saw as errors.”
Lau confirmed that particular discrepancy, the Register reported.
However, there would need to be many more discrepancies for Iowa to hand Clinton a retroactive defeat. The example cited above wouldn’t even amount to one-tenth of a delegate in Sanders’ tally.
Clinton’s camp has been critical of Sanders this week for suggesting “conspiracy theories” about the Iowa vote. Her Iowa campaign manager Matt Paul wrote a piece online Friday — before the Register’s story published — titled, “Hillary Clinton won Iowa. End of story.”
“Now that the caucus is over, they are calling into question the results that were reported by Iowans,” he wrote. “It was a close contest and a hard fought campaign. But Hillary won.”
“They’ll look at the numbers reported that night, check the math and figure out if there are any discrepancies or misallocation of delegates,” Paul said of the Iowa Democratic Party.
“Even if the Sanders campaign were to win all of their challenges — the marginal bump they receive in support would not be enough to overcome Hillary Clinton’s win margin. Those are just the facts.”
